


she makes it new

by lorspolairepeluche



Series: she makes it new [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Wicked Grace, gather round kids its time for another episode of Lets Talk About Our Traumas (tm), panna and her mother are Not Friends, varric has some tangled-up emotions to work out and panna helps a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8652874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorspolairepeluche/pseuds/lorspolairepeluche
Summary: panna fights her mom.





	1. storyteller

“Call.” Panna tosses her coin onto the table. “And raise.” She places another on top of it, deliberately looking Varric right in the eye. She’s _provoking_ him, he realizes.

So does everyone else. “I am not getting in the middle of that,” Halla declares, setting down her cards. “ _Fold._ ”

“Nor am I,” Dorian agrees. “Fold.”

Varric scrutinizes Panna, glances at his own cards, and tosses two coins out. “Call.”

“I’m out,” the Iron Bull says, snapping his hand into a single pile and putting it face-down on the table.

Panna smirks at Varric, her chin resting on her empty hand. “You and me, storyteller.” She places two coins into the growing pile. “Call.”

Varric’s doubt gets the better of him, and he tosses his cards down. “I fold.”

Panna’s smirk slowly grows until it’s a grin, and she lays down her hand for all to see. Varric gapes, for once speechless, at an assortment of cards that looks as random as it is and is certainly no winning hand.

“You had shit-all!” Halla whoops. “You _bluffed_ him! You bluffed the master!” She punches Dorian’s shoulder as she laughs, making him wince before he chuckles along. “Panna Cadash, you’re a hero.”

Panna sits back in her chair, folding her arms, basking in her victory as Varric stares at her. “No hard feelings, right?”

“Holy shit.” Varric’s laugh tumbles from him. “You got me _good,_ She-Bear. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Panna sweeps her winnings to her side of the table, letting herself giggle at the pile of silver as her confident persona drops for a moment. “I fucking win.”

“That you do,” Varric says, leaning back in his own chair to watch her enjoy her win with a genuine smile on her face. “That you do.”

—

“You know, you surprised me in Wicked Grace the other day,” Varric comments as Panna slides into her now-usual seat across from him.

She laughs. “Oh, I know I did.”

“I didn’t know you could bluff like that,” Varric marvels. “I thought you were as straightforward as it gets.”

“There’s a lot of things you might not know about me, Varric,” Panna answers. “I’ve been going to great lengths to keep them hidden from the general public. You do know some of them: that I was born to the Carta, that my parents threatened to disinherit me, that they sent me to spy on the Conclave as a sort of last chance. Some of them you might know, like the fact that I’m Andrastian. And some of them you definitely don’t know.”

“Like?” Varric prompts after a second.

“Excuse me. Some of them you don’t know, and I’d rather keep it that way.” Panna is looking straight at him when she says it, and Varric suddenly appreciates her in a way he hadn’t before. “I am straightforward. Usually. When I’m not, it’s always for a reason that I think is good.”

“And conning me out of a good twenty silver last night was a good reason?” Varric asks, trying to turn the conversation back to a lighthearted one. He doesn’t want to think about the similarities he sees between himself and Panna—or the differences.

“Sure it was.” Panna smiles. “You’re part of the Merchants’ Guild, Master Tethras; I was sure you could spare a few coins for the refugees in Skyhold.”

“That’s what you did with it?” Varric’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Well, I spread it around to a few families. Told them to use it to buy blankets and warm clothes. Skyhold’s colder than anywhere I’ve ever been.”

“That’s cause we’re Free Marchers, She-Bear. It’s a lot colder in Ferelden.”

“So I’d noticed,” Panna mutters, pulling her coat closer around her.

They lapse into comfortable silence as Varric returns to his writing and Panna gazes around the great hall. Josephine is conversing with nobles near the front—not unusual. Cullen is out of his office for once, striding toward the doors. He seems to be having one of his better days; his steps are even and confident, his head held high, and there is a trace of a smile on his face. Still, he seems a little distracted, and when Halla quietly slips out the same door Cullen came through, Panna snorts.

“Something funny?” Varric asks, looking up.

“Halla and Cullen think they’re subtle,” Panna answers, turning back to him.

Varric chuckles. “As a brick to the teeth,” he agrees, waving to Halla as she passes. Panna turns and grins at her, and Halla blushes furiously and throws them a discreet rude gesture before hastening out into Skyhold’s courtyard.

“Does she ever get lonely?”

Varric’s hand stops in midair. “What?”

“Bianca. You know. With only you for company.” Panna turns back to him, and Varric has the distinct feeling that the question is far from innocent, and not entirely joking. She’s asking something else, something he doesn’t want to answer: _Do you ever get lonely?_

_All the time, She-Bear. All the time._

“Here.” Panna reaches into a pocket of her coat and pulls out a small container, setting it on the table in front of Varric.

“Wood polish?” he asks, picking the container up and examining it.

“For Bianca. In case she gets lonely.” Panna smiles lopsidedly—nearly a genuine grin—before it wavers and falls. “Take care of Bianca. I know how much she means to you.”

“You have no idea, She-Bear.” Varric sets the polish back down on the table. “Thanks.”

“No, I—I actually do.” Panna drops her gaze from his face. “I still have my connections. After Valammar, with Bianca—the real Bianca—I got curious. I still had my Carta contacts, so…I called in a few favors, did some digging.” She looks to the side, anywhere but at Varric’s stunned expression. “There wasn’t a lot about it, but…I know you. It was easy enough to figure out what happened.” She hesitates before finishing, “I’m sorry. I’ll go.” She pushes herself to her feet, and Varric isn’t brave enough to call to her as she walks away.

—

Varric feels more at home than he has in years. He’s laughing and joking with his two best friends, and shit, for a few seconds there, he forgets that four years have passed and that the Kirkwall they knew is gone.

And then Selby asks the question Varric was dreading. “You ever think about going back?”

Damn her. She was always the perceptive one, and judging by the way she looks at him, she knows exactly what she asked. “Sometimes,” he says carelessly. “And then I remember that the Inquisition actually has the good booze. I don’t miss the Hanged Man’s ale.”

“But you miss the Hanged Man itself,” Selby says, and it’s not a question. “You can’t lie to us, Varric. We’ve known each other too long.”

“You want to go back to Kirkwall as much as we do,” Leith says quietly.

“It just…wouldn’t be the same,” Varric relents. “Kirkwall’s always gonna be different now.”

“Yeah. It will be,” Selby sighs, leaning back against the battlements and folding her arms. “I think that’s our fault, wouldn’t you say?”

“We did our best,” Leith offers, toying with one of the gold studs in his earlobe. “Not that our best did much, but we did our damnedest to save it.”

“Save it? I was just trying to live there,” Selby scoffed.

“Don’t lie, Blackbear,” Varric chuckles, glad they’re off the topic of ever going back to Kirkwall. “I remember a lot of drunken rants about how messed up Meredith was. A couple of them were on top of tables in the Hanged Man, too.”

Selby laughs aloud at that. “I really got upset about that when I drank, didn’t I?” She quiets and smiles out at Skyhold. “Still do, sometimes.” She sighs again and looks back at Varric. “Really, Varric. Kirkwall could use your help.”

“And his money,” Leith reminds her.

“And your money,” she chuckles. “Look, Varric, Aveline’s written us a few times. She says they’re trying to rebuild.”

“I’m Inquisition now,” Varric says with an attempt at his usual smile. “I think I’m here for the long haul.”

“You can’t mean that,” Leith cajoles. “Kirkwall’s your home.”

“No,” Varric says, very quietly. “I don’t think it is anymore.”

“Varric?” both Hawkes say in unison, taken aback.

He shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s…it’s complicated.” He plasters on his smile and looks back up at them. “Do you want a drink? The tavern here’s pretty well-stocked, considering how short a time we’ve been here.”

The Hawke twins laugh and agree, and Varric has avoided facing his problems for one more day.

—

The door closes behind her, and Panna lets out a long breath, her hands on her hips, as she lets out a long, long breath. Coming home after a long excursion is always a relief, especially with the promise of a bath. She smiles at her room as she runs a hand through her messy hair. “I’m gonna sleep well tonight.”

“Good to hear.”

Panna whips around, and Varric, still in the doorway, holds up his hands in surrender. “Truce. I promise. Can I come in?”

Panna nods, and Varric steps into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. “We…didn’t get a chance to talk before you left.”

“Oh. Right.” Panna recalls their conversation from three weeks ago. She left so early the next morning, and she would be lying if she said it wasn’t at least partially to avoid Varric. “Sorry about that. And…sorry for what I said. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You keep surprising me,” Varric comments. “Not a lot of people who have done that. And not a lot of people have figured out what happened with Bianca.” He fixes her with a steady gaze. “I didn’t think you would be one of them.”

“I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve heard what you say, that it’s the one story you’ll never tell, and I won’t be the one to tell it for you, I swear.”

“No, I figured not. I trust you, She-Bear,” Varric answered. “And that’s…not what I wanted to talk about.” His face gets just a little harder. “I thought the Carta didn’t want you.”

Panna’s eyes narrow in return. “ _I_ didn’t want the _Carta._ ”

“You said your parents were going to disinherit you,” Varric recalls. “That makes it sound like you couldn’t do what they wanted you to do.”

“No. You don’t get it.” Panna folds her arms, still in blood-covered armor and looking as wild as the Emerald Graves from which she has just returned. “I wasn’t stripped of my birthright because I couldn’t do what the Carta wanted. I _refused_ it because I _wouldn’t_ do any of it.”

“Inquisitor!” someone shouts before Varric can answer, and the door to the room flies open, nearly hitting him. A soldier is panting in the hall. “Inquisitor, there are…dwarves…in the courtyard. We let them in, and their leader demanded to see you. We told her you were busy, and…they took hostages.”

Panna’s face goes stormy in half a second flat. “Well, Varric, it seems that ignoring your contacts is _not_ a good way to avoid them. At least, not in the Carta.”

“You know who they are?” the soldier asks, fearful.

“You’re damn right I do.” Panna strides past him, still in armor, still covered in blood. “Mother and Father.”


	2. she-bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> panna fights her mom.

“Inquisition, hold!”

The archers let their bowstrings go slack as another dwarf storms down the steps out of the great hall. She stops at the landing, flanked by an Inquisition soldier and Varric Tethras.

“The Inquisitor arrives.” The female dwarf leading the hostiles releases the refugee child she had been holding, and he tears away, past the circle of soldiers surrounding the dwarves, fear lending speed to his steps. His captor steps forward with a sneer, blue eyes flashing. “Hello, little one.”

“Arda,” Tethras hisses.

Inquisitor Cadash’s lip curls. “Mother,” she says curtly. “Release your hostages, and then we can talk, if you so want.”

The leader turns her head and jerks her chin at the dwarf beside her, and he releases his hostage, a young elf servant. “Let ‘em go,” he calls to the others, and one by one, the other dwarves release their varied hostages.

Panna nods. “Speak your mind, and then leave. I have no patience for lies or time-wasting.”

The older dwarf clicks her tongue. “Such cruel words, child.”

“I am no longer a child. If you want cruel words, I can give you cruel words.” The Inquisitor folds her arms. “Talk quickly; my patience with you was thin already.”

“My question is this: are you really happy here, my daughter?” Arda Cadash steps forward, extending her arms up to her child. “Politics and play-acting; you can’t truly think this is where you belong? You belong at home with your _family,_ love. With your House.”

Varric puts his hand on Panna’s shoulders, and Arda’s eyes, as blue as her daughter’s, flick to him. “Ah. Varric Tethras. I assume I have you to thank for the reply to our letter. I thought I recognized the handwriting.”

Panna whirls on him. “You _what?_ You answered her letter?”

Arda leaps at the opportunity. “He took the liberty of telling us how charming he finds you. And of telling us to show you _respect._ ”

“Don’t listen to her,” Varric says in a low voice, but Panna shakes her head resolutely.

“I don’t need _you_ telling me how to deal with my parents,” she snaps, turning back to her mother.

“Will you come back, little one? We’ve missed you,” Arda says. Varric wants to recoil at the way she can make her blue eyes as big and round and pleading as Panna can make her own. “If not come back, please let us stay and help you.”

“You? Help the Inquisition?” Panna asks.

“No, darling, help _you._ You said yourself: you never wanted power. What is this Inquisitor title, then, if not power? We could help you wield it, help you bear it. Please, little one, let us help you,” Arda implored.

For three seconds, Panna hesitates. She glances behind Arda to the other Carta dwarves, to her father. She looks back at Arda and wavers. For a full three seconds, Varric is scared Panna will give in.

But then she looks to him, and to the soldiers in the courtyard, and then behind her, to where the other three Inquisitors—along with the war council—are hurrying down the steps. And she turns back. And she says, “No.

“No, Mother. I never told you I didn’t want power. I told you I didn’t want _your_ power. You lie and cheat and steal and kill, and that was what I wanted no part of. You called me stupid for not wanting it, told me I would never be anything more than a common soldier.” Panna spreads her arms, indicating everyone in the courtyard. “Look at me now. Look at this Inquisition. These people rely on me to care for them, to look out for them. I promised them that when I stayed behind at Haven to give them all time to escape. I promised them again when they gave me the title of Inquisitor. I got this power because I _didn’t_ lie. I didn’t cheat someone out of it. I didn’t steal it. I didn’t kill to get it. I became Inquisitor because these people trusted me enough to _make_ me their leader, not because I grabbed the position for myself.” She points an accusing finger at her mother, whose face has gone cold. “You could never compare.”

Once again, Inquisitor Cadash raises her arms. “Inquisition!” And the rousing cheer from the soldiers below is all Arda needs.

“So be it,” she snarls. “Cadash!”

The dwarves move as one, unsheathing weapons. Four of them take out bows, aiming for the landing on which Panna and the others stand, and she realizes that each one has an arrow pointed at an Inquisitor’s heart. “Stand down, Mother.”

“Not before I get what I came for, _daughter,_ ” Arda replies.

The soldier who retrieved her is stepping in front of Panna, but she puts out a hand to block him and storms down the steps herself, pulling her sword from her back. “I said, stand _down!_ ” Her roar, charged with power, is enough to send the four dwarves with bows flying back, snap their bows, and blow their arrows out past the gates and into the mountains. She swings her blade around once before she slams the point into the ground, standing firm between her mother and her Inquisition. “If you leave now, you may do so relatively unharmed. Choose to stay, and you will not get off so easily. Now.” She leans closer to Arda, and their angry expressions are damn near identical. “Get—the fuck— _out_ —of my fortress.”

“I know when I’m beaten,” Arda murmurs after a moment. “You’ve become stronger while I wasn’t looking, _little one._ But tell me—do you really think you can remain as stubbornly naïve as you are while wielding as much power as you do?”

“The power is shared,” Panna snarls back. “And I can trust my _friends_ to keep me on the right path. Now _leave._ ”

Arda steps back and holds up a hand. The Carta dwarves lower and sheathe their weapons, and she calls, “We retreat. For now.”

“Forever,” Panna corrects. “Show your face here again, and you will not leave alive.”

Arda says nothing to her daughter’s threat, merely turns and leads her House out the gates and away from Skyhold.

As soon as Panna loses sight of her mother’s back in the swirling snow, she turns and starts back up the stairs, sheathing her sword. When she reaches the landing, she turns back to the courtyard and calls, “Inquisition. You are my people. You have trusted me with your lives time and time again, and, if it is within my power, I will _never_ break that trust.”

“Well-said,” Varric murmurs as the people below cheer and Panna leads the others back up to the great hall. He smiles as he adds on, “Inquisitor.”

—

The western battlements usually afford quite the view at sunset, but suddenly Varric appreciates it even more.

Panna has cleaned up, and wears only a white shirt tucked into a pair of leggings, with simple boots on her feet and a pendant nestled on her chest. Her hands lean on the low stone wall, the wind coming off the mountains blowing her hair away from her face and making her pushed-up sleeves billow, and the sunset illuminates her features. Her brow is furrowed, as if she’s thinking hard about something.

“Wow.”

Panna jumps and whirls around. “Varric?”

“Don’t mind me,” he chuckles, taking the last few steps to stand beside her and pretending he had meant to verbally express his amazement. “You okay?”

Panna lets out a bracing breath and leans against the wall again. “I suppose I expected that whole scene. Mother isn’t one to miss an opportunity to grab more power, especially if she can make it seem legitimate. Controlling one of the most politically powerful organizations in Thedas through me? A dream come true for her.”

“I asked if _you_ were okay,” Varric says gently, a hand resting on her back.

“Surprisingly…more than okay.” Panna gives him a rare smile. “It felt good to finally be able to tell her off like that.”

“That was brave of you. I read that letter of hers; I saw how she talked to you. That’s…not something you get over easily. Not something you just shake off.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” Varric assures her.

Panna sighs and hangs her head. “I guess…I owe you something of an explanation, don’t I?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Varric answers quickly.

“No, no, you’ve…you’ve been there since this whole Inquisition thing began. You’ve…cared about me. Cared _for_ me.” Panna sends a halfhearted smile his way. “You deserve to know the whole story. And I won’t sugarcoat it this time. This…is one of those stories that deserves to be told how it really happened

“I was…what, twelve? Already in training to become the next leader of House Cadash. I’m an only child; my parents’ hopes rode on me. And I was…proud of that. I was going to make them proud of me. And then I met Calli. She was an elf girl, a year and half older than me. I remember—our birthdays were exactly six months apart. She was from the Starkhaven alienage; I was from a powerful crime syndicate family. But she was older than me, and she knew the city better, so, when we were together, she was the boss.” Panna smiles at the memory. “I was twelve, she was thirteen, and we got up to a lot of shit together. On my thirteenth birthday, when I came to her crying because my parents had forgotten it…she gave me my first kiss.”

Panna lets out a very heavy sigh. “Three days later, I realized why my parents had forgotten: they were making plans to move to Kirkwall. The lyrium trade was apparently good there that year, so House Cadash followed. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave Calli. When I heard, I ran to the alienage, to Calli’s family, and begged them to hide me. They…didn’t know who my family were. I was just Panna to them. And I didn’t think my parents knew about Calli. But they did. And when House Cadash came looking for their precious heir…” Panna shakes her head, her mouth twisting bitterly as she looks back up to where the sun is slowly disappearing below the horizon. “The elves didn’t stand a chance. They’re not allowed to carry weapons, and no one pays attention when a few elves get killed.” Panna hisses through her teeth with an old, old frustration. “I saw Calli get killed, right in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, because it was my mother who killed her. They dragged me out of the alienage by my wrist while I kicked and screamed and cried for Calli.

“That was the day I began to hate my parents. By the time I was seventeen, I just…I just wanted out. I railed against them at every chance.” She smiles with no hint of happiness. “And finally, they gave me what I wanted. They stripped me of my inheritance and sent me away.”

“To the Conclave,” Varric says, his first words since the start of Panna’s story.

“It was my ‘last chance,’” Panna explains. “Even if the whole thing hadn’t literally blown up in our faces…I wasn’t planning on going back. I think Mother and Father knew that. At least, Mother did. I guess it was her way of…letting me go. I was going to claim sanctuary with the Chantry, and two weeks later I would have received a very neatly-written letter letting me know that I was cut off and that if I ever tried to reclaim my birthright, I would be declaring war with House Cadash.” She laughs mirthlessly. “I knew by then how these things work. I’ll probably be getting that letter sometime in the next couple of weeks. But, you know?” She stands up straight, looking out at the dimming glow where the sun had been minutes before. Her smile is getting more real by the second. “Somehow, I can’t bring myself to care.”

Panna turns to Varric beside her for the first time since he arrived on the battlements. “This is home now. The Inquisition is my new family.” She hesitates before finishing, quieter, “You’re…something beyond that.”

Varric laughs to try and allay some of the sudden tension. “She-Bear.” He can’t think of anything else to say beyond that, so he just takes her hand in his and says it again, softer: “She-Bear.”

“Storyteller,” she murmurs.

And Panna kisses him. It’s a sweet kiss, not one asking for anything more than this. Just a touching of lips, a hand on Varric’s shoulder, a soft sigh as Panna lets the kiss go. She keeps her hands where they are, one still tucked into Varric’s, the other on his shoulder, as she smiles at him, softer than a smirk or a grin, more real than any smile he’s seen from her today. “Thank you, Varric. For—for listening.”

“Anytime, sweetheart,” Varric murmurs as he tugs her hand and leans in for another kiss.

—

Varric realizes that there’s something new the next day. Skyhold seems almost…brighter. His eyes are drawn to Panna whenever he sees her, and she looks happier than she has in a long time, perhaps the happiest he’s ever seen her. She looks beautiful when leaning against a pillar in the library, talking with Dorian and Aiyan in the alcove Dorian so loves. She looks radiant when in the tavern, laughing and sharing a drink with Saraan and the Iron Bull over the dragon they killed while out. She looks absolutely glorious when beating Blackwall, then Cullen, then Cassandra, in the training yard.

Varric is turning into one of his own lovesick protagonists. And the worst part is, he can’t bring himself to care.

Halla makes her usual visit to his table in the great hall that evening, and this time she has a smirk on her face when she sits across from him. “You and Panna. Nice.”

“Is it that obvious?” Varric asks, resigned. If Halla knows, then so does the entire inner circle. Damn it.

“She told us,” Halla replies, waiting only a second before allowing, “All right, we goaded it out of her when she kept staring off into space during a war council meeting.”

So maybe the _entire_ inner circle doesn’t know.

Varric’s hope for that is shattered when Dorian slides in beside Halla with a devious smile all over his mustachioed face. “I was so glad to see our dear Inquisitor Cadash actually _smiling_ without provocation this morning. I asked her, whatever could be the occasion? She rather blurted it out: that a certain dashing rogue had stolen a kiss from her on the battlements at sunset! How romantic, Varric. I didn’t believe you had it in you.”

Both cousins lean in with matching expectant smirks. “Well?” Halla prompts.

“Neither of you really needs to know,” Varric protests weakly.

“Best to hear it directly from you,” Dorian cajoles. “Otherwise we’ll all be going about believing scurrilous rumors that place you in the Inquisitor’s bedroom rather than on the battlements.”

“That’s playing dirty,” Varric objects, to matching grins from both Halla and Dorian.

“Playing dirty is what those rumors say _you_ were doing,” Halla answers, and Varric curses both of them silently.

“Alright, alright, I kissed her.”

Halla and Dorian cheer, and Varric quickly adds, “She kissed me first!”

But the cousins are already running off with the news like a pair of children, and Varric just sits back in his chair and sighs, leaning his face on a hand and thinking that after teasing the both of them so much about their love lives, maybe he deserves this.

—

Aiyan is kinder when he asks about what Panna said, smiles and wishes them well, but there’s a glint in those dark eyes that says Varric’s end will be swift if Panna’s heart is ever broken. Saraan is more open about her threat, but far more nonchalant as well, sharpening an arrowhead and sighting down the line of the arrow to make sure it’s straight as she says, “So if Panna ever comes to me crying about being dumped, I know who to blame.”

“I would never,” Varric professes.

Saraan sets the arrow down and fixes him with an intense gold-eyed gaze. “I’m glad,” she says simply. “Make her happy, Varric. And I hope she makes you happy. Maker knows you both need it.” She looks back at her arrows, lined up neatly on the table between them. “I was…talking with Leith Hawke. He misses Kirkwall, and so does his sister. And…he wondered what you meant when you said that Kirkwall’s not your home anymore.”

“This is my home,” Varric says simply. “I’m with the Inquisition now. Same as Panna.”

“Yeah, but Panna _wanted_ to leave her old home. You…were forced out.” She levels her gaze on him again. “Something happened to make it different, and now…you don’t think you can ever truly go back. I know the feeling.”

“Something happen to you, Lioness?”

Saraan lets out a laugh at his use of the nickname. “Yeah. I don’t like to talk about it, but then…you probably don’t like to talk about Kirkwall, either. I’ve told Bull about what happened to me, and eventually, you’re probably going to have to tell Panna about what happened to you.” She collects her arrows, sliding them into her quiver, and tosses the quiver on her back before she leaves without another word.

—

Varric stays up very late that night and considers just how much his life has changed. He also gets very drunk, but that tends to come with the course when he thinks hard about unpleasant things.

He thinks about Wicked Grace, about Diamondback, about the way Fenris tried, but never succeeded, at maintaining a straight face. “The ears don’t help, either, sweet,” Isabela once drawled, flicking the tip of one with a finger after winning all of Fenris’s money from him. Fenris nearly bit her finger off.

He thinks about the Skyhold courtyard and about the walled gardens of Kirkwall that Merrill always seemed to find her way into, no matter how many guards were posted around them. _Daisy would love the plants here,_ he thinks wistfully. He thinks about Cullen’s office and about a very similar one with a similarly serious commander behind it. He thinks about all the Chantry fanatics around and finds himself wishing one had a Starkhaven accent. He thinks about the Herald’s Rest and how it can’t quite compare to the rowdiness of the Hanged Man—too few fights.

And he thinks of Selby and Leith, probably snoozing together somewhere in guest quarters, or maybe in the soldiers’ barracks, regaling them with a tale of Kirkwall shenanigans, with both of them saying “Varric could tell it better” at least once every thirty seconds.

And Varric puts a hand over his face and realizes that Kirkwall is his home. It always will be. His life hasn’t changed at all. He hasn’t let it.

In his heart, Varric Tethras never left Kirkwall.

And then he remembers Panna, straightforward (usually), bold (sometimes), and beautiful (always). He smiles, hand still over his eyes, and remembers how she looked on the battlements in the sunset. In the second he first caught sight of her, Varric’s heart, so very briefly, left Kirkwall.

Maybe, if he continues down this path, just maybe he can find a new home.


	3. sweetheart

Panna falls asleep on his shoulder in camp.

She’s exhausted, of course; she’s a dwarf swinging a two-handed sword all day, vanguard for their traveling party flanked by Cassandra and Bull. But the falling asleep on someone—especially on Varric—is new. It’s definitely not unwelcome. The other three Inquisitors all smile over their bowls of stew as Varric quietly puts a kiss on the top of Panna’s head.

He retires early, gently pushing a still-sleeping Panna over to lean on Bull instead and slipping into his tent even as a tipsy Halla calls after him, pleading for just one more campfire story. He has other things to attend to, even if he does end up thinking about Panna’s soft, even breaths against his shoulder instead of actually attending to them.

“Yo, Varric.” Bull’s voice is quieter than Varric’s ever heard it as the big Tal-Vashoth stoops and pushes open the flap of his tent. “Can you take care of her for the night?”

“What?” Varric looks up, distracted, just as the Iron Bull easily lifts a still-slumbering Panna down off his shoulders and sets her down inside Varric’s tent. “Tiny, what are you doing?”

“I called dibs on sharing Saraan’s tent tonight, and she evicted the other three, since they won’t fit with both of us in there. Aiyan went with his ‘Vint, naturally, and Halla took my tent. I thought Panna could sleep with you.” He grins and retreats—fast—with only a “Thanks. See you in the morning!” and ignores Varric’s halfhearted protests.

Varric resigns himself to defeat and crouches next to Panna. “Hey. She-Bear. I can’t carry you.” He shakes her gently. “You’re gonna have to get to the bedroll yourself.”

“Mmh…” Panna rouses herself with a mumble and crawls to Varric’s bedroll, flopping down on it once there and falling back asleep almost immediately. Varric sighs and snaps his book shut, setting it aside in favor of lying next to Panna, carefully not touching her.

Panna nestles closer anyway with a murmur of sleepy contentment. Varric allows himself to wrap his arms around her with a whisper of “sweetheart” when he realizes that, for only the second time in his life, his heart has left Kirkwall.

—

They become frequent, these moments when Varric’s heart ends up in Panna’s hands rather than in Lowtown: when she undercuts a demon before beheading it, when she gives him a secret smile on the road while the others are talking, when she flatly tells a diplomat who has been making subtle digs at her all through their conversation that if he makes one more left-handed comment about her stature, she’ll start questioning how “short” _he_ is. When Varric brushes her hair away from her face and she leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed. When she suddenly gets impatient and leans forward to claim a kiss, a little smile on her face when she rocks back on her heels, her hands still in his.

He finds it easier to think about, too, finds he doesn’t really mind that Panna is his home now more than Kirkwall. She’s a good home, a sturdy and dependable one, one that keeps him safe, one that he loves.

He admits it to her, six months after Arda’s banishment from Skyhold. He says it while their foreheads are pressed together in a hidden corner, a few stolen moments while the Inquisitor is between duties. “I love you, Panna.”

Panna looks almost surprised for a second, and Varric chuckles. “Didn’t have that one figured out about me, did you?”

“Sure, I had it figured out,” Panna laughs, “but not that you’d actually say it. See, Varric, you _can_ be brave.”

“Still waiting on the reply,” Varric murmurs, his hands already moving to her face.

“Impatient dwarf,” she scolds him, her arms sliding around his neck. “I love you, too.”

They kiss until Halla finds them and announces, entirely unfazed, that the war council is convening. Panna hurries off with one last squeeze of Varric’s hand, and Halla gives him a grin over her shoulder as she follows.

Varric leans against the wall and watches them go, smiling as he realizes that his heart belongs here, with the Inquisition, with this strange family, with _Panna,_ just as much as it belongs in Kirkwall.

—

Not for the first time, the kiss is desperate. Not for the first time, they know it might be the last. And not for the first time, Varric tastes blood in his lover’s mouth. “We’ll come back,” he pants when the kiss breaks. “We all will. We have to. You and me and the others—all of us. It’s been too long together not to.”

“We will, I promise.” Panna’s words are quick; they’re both acutely aware of just how little time they may have for this last embrace. But they lack none of their usual surety. “We’ll all come back. We’ll beat Corypheus, and we’ll come back alive. That’s a promise, Varric. I won’t take your home from you.”

The two dragons scream above them, locked in battle, and all of them look up: Varric and Panna, Aiyan and Dorian, Saraan and her Iron Bull. “Time to go,” Halla says tightly, looking up to where flashes of red and green signal that Corypheus himself has entered the fray. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?” Saraan asks, her hand at Halla’s back. “You’re the one who has to close that thing again.”

“I’m ready,” Halla says firmly. “I made a lot of promises, and today they all come true. We’re going to fight, we’re going to win, and we’re going to go back home.”

—

She comes back home, bloodied and bruised, but with a smile and an embrace for him, because he is her home as much as she is his.

—

“She makes everything new.” Cole swings his legs innocently below his chair as he says it, eyes on Varric from beneath that ridiculous hat. “Nothing felt new till her.”

Varric listens indulgently, knowing what Cole is going to say and not afraid of it. The spirit—more human now—smiles, actually smiles, at the thoughts he repeats: “Panna, Panna… Her name is like her: hard at first, but mellowing into the _a_ , tough in the _n_ , and almost singing through the last _a_ when it fades away… _Panna…_ ” He draws out the last vowel into a long _ah._ “It sounds like a sigh, _her_ sigh when she leans her head against your shoulder. Varric. It has a hard ending, one that usually ends harshly, but she molds it into a smile, the _kh_ sound soft and almost not there. You love the way she says your name.”

“That I do,” Varric agrees.

Cole goes on, running his fingers along the grain of the wood table as he narrates, “Kirkwall’s lost, but I was still clinging to it, just the way my parents clung to Orzammar when it was lost to them. There’s talk of rebuilding it, but it could never be the same. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be. If home’s a person, why can’t a city change?” His brow furrows just the slightest bit. “ _She’s_ home now. The laughter, the ferocity, the joy—it’s all there in her. Home makes you braver. She’s your home, and so you think, maybe, you can finally face your old home.”

—

They’ve voted him Viscount.

“Complain once about the hurdles you have to jump to fund something without a proper Viscount, and look what it gets you!” Varric grumbles the first night in the Keep, lying in bed with one arm behind his head and the other tucked under Panna.

“A mansion and some peace and quiet,” Panna answers, kissing his cheek. “I’m not complaining.” By now, the entire city knows that their new Viscount keeps a very powerful lover, and Panna likes it that way. The letter from Arda never did come, so Inquisitor Cadash’s name wields power over both the people of Kirkwall and the Carta crime lords.

Aveline already confessed to Varric that, aside from her fast friendship with Panna, she _really likes_ the way Inquisitor Cadash’s presence in the city—and her work taking down dens of slavers and bandits on the outskirts—has considerably lessened the risk to the City Guardsmen. She sounded pleased when she said, “I actually have some time to spend with Donnic outside of work now.” Varric just made a mental note to avoid the two redheads when they were together.

Varric can’t help but smile when Panna props herself over him and grins. “And _you’re_ the one who wants to rebuild this city, remember?”

“You’re the one who convinced me,” he retorts. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her down on top of him, making her yelp in surprise before she nestles her head next to his, letting her hand trail through his chest hair.

“We’re going to do this,” she says quietly. “We’re going to rebuild Kirkwall, Varric. It’s not going to be perfect, and it’s not going to ever be the way it was, but…it’ll be good again. We’ll work to see that it is. And I’ll be right next to you, the entire time. I promise.”

The words leave Varric before he weighs the outcomes: “Of course you’ll be next to me; you’ll be my wife.”

Panna goes very still on top of him for a second. “Varric?”

He doesn’t answer. _Well. This is it. This is how I die._

She pushes herself up to look him in the eye again. “Is that _really_ how you were planning to ask me to marry you?”

“You knew?”

“Of course I _knew._ I can see right through you, Viscount Tethras.” She lets herself lie on top of him, settling her chin on her hands on his chest. “But I’m not going to answer until you ask nicely.”

Varric’s laugh rumbles through him, and Panna smiles to feel it in his chest. “Fine.” He half-sits up as she rolls off him, props himself on his elbows as she leans her head on a hand and gives him an expectant look. “Inquisitor Panna Cadash, would you do me the great honor of being legally bound to cover my ass in a fight or in Wicked Grace?”

“Ass!” But she’s laughing as she shoves at his shoulder. It devolves into half a wrestling match and ends with Varric holding her tight against his chest and her struggles ceasing as she tucks her head in toward him and lets her breath ghost out over his chest.

“Will you marry me, sweetheart?” Varric whispers.

“Yes, storyteller,” she whispers back. “I will marry you.”

They are home.


End file.
